Manufacturing or domestic tasks handled by robots require some degree of flexibility due to error in position/orientation of objects to be measured or handled to accomplish a given industrial or domestic task such as machine tending, loading, unloading, diecast handling, dimensional control, robot motion guidance robotic perception, etc.
Current robots can mostly rely on single sensors that are complicated to integrate into a manufacturing or handling operation and inefficient to provide the type of data required when objects must be located into an inaccurate and sometimes non-structured environment. Individual sensors must communicate together and interact with the robot controller to supply timely data used to control the robotic process in real time.
One major constraint is the difficulty to use robots to handle hazardous tasks otherwise done by humans. The use of multiple single sensors that are cumbersome requires complicated data processing and calibration thus making it difficult and sometimes impossible to apply them for locating, measuring, guiding, handling, etc.